Hoping to initiate a more active musical life at the White House, President Theodore Roosevelt commissioned Steinway and Sons to produce this piano. The instrument’s decoration, according to Roosevelt’s wish, expressed patriotic pride through eagles, garlands and shields that carry the coats of arms of the first 13 states.

A symbol for the Gilded Age, the piano was painted by Thomas Wilmer Dewing in 1903 on the occasion of the Steinway & Sons company’s 50th anniversary. Painting in the style of contemporaries like Whistler and Thayer, Dewing portrayed the nine muses coming to America.

Best to view in "Original" because other versions resized by Pbase are decidedly unsharp.

‘Securing the People’s House – with a 13-foot barrier, posted earlier: